ISLAMABAD: Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif has said that his meeting with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was an important interaction after President Trump announced his South Asia strategy on Aug 21.

During his interaction with foreign media at the Pakistan embassy on Thursday, he said that after the announcement by the US president of his South Asia Strategy, ties between Pakistan and the US had taken a new turn.

“If on the one hand the US has its concerns about the future of Afghanistan, Pakistan also has some legitimate concerns and it also seeks recognition of these concerns. We are genuinely concerned with regard to the role given to India in the new strategy by the US.”

“My visit is essentially a follow-up to Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s meeting with Vice President Mike Pence on the sidelines of UNGA on Sept 19, 2017.” He said that Pakistan greatly valued its relations with the US in its seven-decade-old history of result-oriented cooperation.

“We want to build a relationship founded on mutual respect. We firmly believe that through consistent, structured and constructive engagement at political and diplomatic levels, both countries can continue to work together for the common goal of peace, stability and prosperity in South Asia,” the foreign minister said.

“We also see enormous investment and business opportunities in Pakistan for corporate America, particularly after Pakistan’s successes in the war against terror and significant reduction in terrorist incidents in the country,” he said.

However, he said, Pakistan believed that unless there was stability in Afghanistan, the dividends of peace in the region would continue to elude us.

To achieve that goal, he said, both the US and Pakistan needed to work closely, he stressed.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2017